Hacking the Ladyblog
by quicksilversquared
Summary: Chat Noir likes taking goofy pictures on patrol. That was normal. What was not normal was those photos showing up without any explanation on the Ladyblog.


When Ladybug first found Chat Noir crouched across the street from Alya's apartment building, staring intently at the screen on his baton, she didn't think anything of it. Her partner could sometimes be found in odd places and unless whatever he was doing was _really_ odd, Ladybug didn't bother questioning it. Her partner was too honest to be doing anything else, like spying on someone, so it was completely possible (and very probable) that Chat Noir was watching the new kitten that Alya's neighbors had gotten just the other week.

So Ladybug sighed, rolled her eyes, and called Chat Noir over to start their patrol. Her partner startled with a yowl before pasting an innocent expression on his face and dashing over to her with a welcoming grin. She didn't ask what he had been doing and he didn't offer any explanation.

So she forgot about it, until Alya let out an unholy shriek one morning as they sat at their desks waiting for class to start.

"LOOK!" Alya demanded, waving her phone only centimeters in front of Marinette's nose. Marinette almost went cross-eyed trying to focus on the screen in front of her. She grabbed Alya's wrist, pulling both her friend's hand and her phone far enough away from her face to focus on the screen. The Ladyblog came into focus first, and then Marinette's eyes snapped to the photo taking up most of the screen. It was of Ladybug and Chat Noir, which in itself wasn't weird, but it wasn't an action shot, or even a picture of the heroes on patrol from a distance.

No, it was the selfie that Chat Noir and Ladybug had taken the previous night at Chat Noir's insistence.

Chat's grin was mischievous and wide, practically splitting his face. Ladybug was mid eye-roll, though a small smile graced her lips in amusement at her partner's antics. Their cheeks were smushed together from Chat Noir's enthusiasm. Marinette remembered the picture, of course, since Chat Noir had crooned for a solid minute about how _cute_ she was in the picture before she threatened to take his baton and delete the photo.

"Did Chat Noir submit that to the Ladyblog?" Marinette asked in confusion. Chat Noir hadn't mentioned anything of the sort to her, and obviously _she_ hadn't done it- wait. "Or did Ladybug?" Marinette added quickly, knowing full well that while she knew that Ladybug hadn't submitted it, it was better to play dumb in regards to superhero shenanigans so that she wouldn't look suspicious.

" _No one_ submitted it!" Alya spluttered, taking her phone back and glaring at the screen. "It just _appeared_ right now!"

Marinette blinked. _That_ was weird. "Uh..."

"And the only way anyone can post _anything_ is if they have administrative access, and the only person with that kind of access is _me!"_ Alya refreshed the page again and when the picture didn't vanish, she scowled and set the phone aside. "Which means someone hacked into the Ladyblog."

"Wait, what?" Nino asked as he appeared in the classroom's doorway with Adrien hot on his heels. He looked startled. "Someone hacked the Ladyblog? What did they do? Did they mess stuff up?"

As Alya explained, Marinette let her eyes drift over to Adrien. He was listening to Alya attentively, leaning over to get a glance of the photo on her phone. His lips twitched upwards in amusement before he wrestled his features into a neutral expression as to not attract Alya's ire.

"But it doesn't seem like they're doing any harm," Nino was saying when Marinette finally pulled her attention away from the side of Adrien's (gorgeous) face. "I mean, you said the photo the only thing that's changed, right?"

"I don't know," Alya said, scrolling through her phone. "I _think_ so, but it's hard to tell on mobile and this post only just showed up. I'll have to check the site at lunch." Alya groaned, flopping back against the seat. She looked stressed. " _Ooooh_ , this is _such_ a pain. I'll have to change my admin password to see if that keeps them out. _Ugh_ , and I was planning on using lunch to get started on the Lit essay."

Adrien looked strangely put out at that. "But if all they're doing is posting superhero selfies, why bother? There's already nearly two dozen comments on the photo, and it was only posted, what? Ten minutes ago? Twenty?."

" _Five_. But it's the principle of the thing!" Alya shoved her phone in her bag with a huff. "I can't just have people hacking into the Ladyblog left and right. It's embarrassing. I'm going to change my password as soon as I get home for lunch."

"But Alya-"

Alya shook her head. "I don't know who this person is. I'm changing my password, just in case."

* * *

"Chat Noir was spotted out and about during our lunch period," Alya reported when Marinette joined her after lunch was over. Alya looked put-out, with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. "And I missed it, because I was busy making sure nothing else on the Ladyblog had changed and then I had to reset my password. He was apparently in my neighborhood too, right near my apartment building."

Marinette blinked. There hadn't been any news of an akuma attack, so why had Chat Noir been out? Surely he would have tried to contact her if there had been a stealthy akuma and then Tikki would have let her know about it. Tikki hadn't sensed anything from Chat Noir, and she hadn't said anything about sensing an akuma. She snuck a look into her purse to check as soon as Alya's attention had returned to her phone, but only got a shrug of confusion from Tikki.

"I'm not feeling any akumas," Tikki whispered. "He might just have been stretching his legs, or running an errand- you've gone out as Ladybug when there's not an akuma and no patrols."

Marinette shrugged- that was very true- and turned her attention back to Alya. Her friend had moved on from wondering why Chat Noir might have been out without an akuma attack and was talking about the uproar on the Ladyblog at the photo. Apparently the lack of a caption on the superhero selfie had thrown the comment section into a tizzy.

"People want to know how I got it and really, what can I say?" Alya said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "So I haven't said anything yet, and now there's all this speculation going on in the comments and it's absolutely insane. I don't want to say that I don't know how I got it, because what if a future employer thinks that I don't know how to deal with security properly?"

Personally Marinette didn't think it would be a huge problem, but she might have been a _bit_ biased. After all, she knew that the so-called hacker meant absolutely no harm. Well, she _suspected,_ but there was absolutely no doubt in Marinette's mind that Chat Noir was behind the mysterious photo on the Ladyblog.

He was the one who had taken the picture, after all, and there was no way that even a master hacker could break into her yo-yo or Chat Noir's baton. How he had managed to get Alya's admin password was a mystery, but it didn't really matter. She could always ask him later, when she scolded him for abusing his superpowers to hack into a civilian blog.

And then she forgot, because she and Adrien got assigned lab partners in Physics for the next unit.

A solid week went by without any more strange posts on the Ladyblog, and slowly the fervor over the unexplained picture died down. Alya finally relaxed and stopped checking the Ladyblog between classes for any more unexplained posts.

All was good.

"Alya, how do you livestream things on your blog?" Adrien asked a week and a day after the superhero selfie was posted. "I've always wondered how you do it. Surely it would be easier to just post the videos after the fight is finished?"

Alya perked up, like she always did when the subject of all the work she did behind the scenes for her blog was brought up. "Yeah, it _would_ be easier, but I get _so_ many more views on live feeds than on things that I post later. I've set things up on the blog and my phone so that it's easier to livestream and I don't have to waste any time setting things up when there's an akuma attack. The Ladyblog is programmed to save everything I stream as I stream, so if my feed gets cut off in the middle of a fight like it did with the Black Knight, everything is still saved on my blog."

"That's cool," Adrien commented, nodding along and looking incredibly interested. "So do you have something special set up on your phone then, or...?"

Marinette zoned out their conversation as Alya leaned across their desk to show Adrien how she livestreamed things on the Ladyblog. It wasn't that what Alya did wasn't interesting- Marinette was very proud of her friend for being able to figure out how to do the coding required for a blog like the Ladyblog- but since Marinette would never be able to take videos for Alya, she wasn't particularly interested in learning the ins and outs of how the Ladyblog worked behind the scenes, especially since she was hardly going to do any reporting for Alya.

As Alya switched over to her personal blog to give Adrien a chance to try live-streaming from it, Marinette couldn't help but idly wonder why Adrien had asked about it. She certainly almost never saw him hanging around during akuma attacks like Alya did (his father would probably throw a fit if he did), so it wasn't as though Adrien was going to become a second reporter for the Ladyblog. He probably just wanted to show support for Alya, Marinette finally decided as Adrien turned the phone camera on Nino with a laugh. Alya confiscated her phone a second later to end the livestream and put her phone away before Miss Bustier entered the classroom.

Whatever the reason, it was cute, Marinette decided as she pulled out her notebook. Alya had been absolutely _thrilled_ as she explained all of the work she had done to get the livestream working and Adrien had seemed to soak up all of the information like a sponge.

Marinette's gaze drifted back to Adrien and she was surprised to see that he was scribbling away furiously at his notebook. She leaned forward, trying to read what he was writing, but Adrien's handwriting was unusually messy and cramped as he took notes on something. He turned the notebook's page a moment later when Miss Bustier called the class to order, and it didn't take long for Marinette to forget about the strange incident.

* * *

"Ladybug, say hi to the camera!"

Ladybug turned around and raised an eyebrow at Chat Noir, who had the camera on his baton turned on her as they stood at the top of the Eiffel Tower, surveying the city below before they started patrol. "What _are_ you doing, Chat Noir?"

Her partner shot a wide grin at her. "Livestreaming, of course. Say hi to Paris!"

"Live- Chat Noir!" Ladybug scolded when she realized what her partner was doing, lunging for him. Chat danced out of the way, bounding down to a lower platform on the Eiffel Tower before turning the camera back on her. "What site are you live-streaming on? You better not have hacked into the Ladyblog again!"

The black cat had the audacity to pout at her. " _Hacked_ is such a strong word. I _gained access_ to the Ladyblog."

"Without permission."

"Well _yes_ but-"

" _Chat Noir!_ "

He gave an impish shrug. "I figured that Paris might want to see what we do on patrol. So say hi!"

Ladybug rolled her eyes but waved at the camera anyway before returning her attention to Chat Noir. "You can't just _hack into_ people's websites just to live-stream our patrols!"

"Aww, but _bugaboo_..."

Ladybug folded her arms and gave Chat Noir a _look_ as she tried to figure out what to do. She didn't want to be seen as a wet blanket, but _someone_ had to stop Chat Noir from randomly hacking into her best friend's blog. Still, there was a very real possibility that Alya would be thrilled to get footage _from an actual superhero_ and it could help her blog's ratings get even higher.

"Okay, but _just this once_ ," Ladybug insisted. "You need _permission_ if you're going to make this a habit."

Chat Noir grinned at her. "Of course, my lady!"

* * *

Alya stared in disbelief as the two heroes bantered back and forth on the video streaming on her blog. Somehow Chat Noir had gained access and figured out how to stream, all without alerting her. The comments section was absolutely on fire- after all, this was _superhero video straight from the source-_ and the views were racking up ever higher as news got out.

It was _insane_.

"Are you going to change your password again?" Marie, one of her little sisters, asked. All three of them were hanging over her shoulder watching the stream, and they were starting to get on Alya's nerves with their nonstop questions. "Or are you going to let them keep posting things on your blog?"

"She should let Ladybug and Chat Noir post things," Allison argued, sticking her tongue out at Marie. "Otherwise they might go somewhere else with their videos and pictures and stuff."

"They could submit their videos like everyone else does," Marie argued. Alya sighed.

Allison swelled up with self-righteous rage as she planted tiny fists on her waist. "But they're not _everyone else!_ They're _superheroes!_ "

"But they should still ask permission first," Charlotte finally piped up. "Because it's good manners."

"Ladybug said that Chat Noir would have to ask permission in the future," Alya finally said as both superheroes waved goodnight to Paris and the stream finally came to an end. She reached out for her computer mouse and scrolled down the page, reading a few of the hundreds of comments that had appeared there. Most were a variation of " _ahh omg I can't believe it_ " but others were a little more coherent.

 _Pretty pretty please let them post more,_ one comment read.

 _Omg they're SUCH goofs_ , another said.

Alya skimmed down the list, smiling at a couple comments and rolling her eyes at the few commenters that were from moderators of other blogs and who were quite obviously jealous at the attention she had been getting from the superheroes.

 _Why does SHE get all of the attention, huh?_ a comment from the moderator of a competing blog demanded. _Aren't superheroes supposed to be impartial?_

Alya snorted and resisted the urge to point out that _their_ blog had almost _zero_ original content since they constantly ripped off videos from the Ladyblog and the news. Besides, all of their original content was filmed with what was possibly the worst camera phone in all history. It was no wonder that their blog, according to a traffic website, had almost no subscribers.

Yeah, so maybe Alya was a little bit smug. Or a lot bit smug.

Chat Noir stopped by that night, begging Alya with wide kitten eyes for permission to post more.

"It would probably mostly just be pictures," Chat Noir said as Alya stared him down. He looked appropriately cowed in front of her disapproving glare, which was hugely amusing. "It's hard to keep up with Ladybug on patrol when I'm taking videos and, uh, I realize that it might take up a lot of space on your server...and I'm sorry for not asking permission first?"

"Hmmm." Alya let Chat Noir stew for a little longer as she pretended to think about it. She was _definitely_ going to let the superheroes keep their access, there was no question about that, but she would have appreciated a heads-up _before_ they did anything and besides, how many people could say that they had been able to make a superhero sweat? "Well, let me think about it..."

Yeah, she was going to _enjoy_ dragging this out.

* * *

"You should have seen his _face_ ," Alya chortled the next morning as she told Marinette about the incident before class started. "Like, he actually thought that I was going to say no. Why would I turn down the chance for even more exclusive superhero footage?"

Marinette's lips twitched in amusement at the thought of her superhero partner trying to face off with her intrepid reporter friend. She was sure that Alya had given him a sufficiently hard time about the hacking, so Ladybug wouldn't have to continue scolding Chat Noir about it. Maybe then Ladybug could come across as a little more fun next time. Some of the comments about how she had behaved at first had made Marinette wince, and she couldn't even deny that they had a point. People had no doubt been thrilled to see a livestream directly from the superheroes, and to see Ladybug try to put a stop to it...

"I forgot to ask how he even got access to the administrative side of the Ladyblog and how he figured out how to work the livestream," Alya tacked on with a sigh. "Which was stupid, but I'm sure I can ask when I see him again."

"So you're letting Chat Noir keep his access?" Nino asked as he entered the room. Marinette perked up; Nino's entrance meant that Adrien would soon be coming. Sure enough, the blond boy entered the room only seconds later.

Alya nodded as a satisfied smirk danced across her lips. "Uh-huh. But in return for me forgiving him and letting him keep his access, I said he and Ladybug would have to answer a list of questions from me- it's just a few get-to-know-you sort of things!" Alya tacked on when both Marinette and Nino raised their eyebrows. Adrien looked strangely resigned as he listened to Alya.

Despite her calm appearance, Marinette's stomach was churning. _What had Chat Noir agreed to?_ He might not know Alya in real life (she really didn't know), but _she_ did and if Alya asked any questions that might identify her...

"Chat Noir insisted that he and Ladybug have veto power on the questions," Alya continued, and Marinette's shoulders slumped in relief. _Good kitty._ "And _obviously_ I'm not going to press my luck with that, since I don't actually want to drive him away. You should have _seen_ the huge spike in traffic that my blog saw while they were streaming, and I've got a ton more subscribers since last night! It's absolutely fantastic!"

"That's great, Alya!" Nino exclaimed. He looked absolutely thrilled for his girlfriend. "So did Chat Noir tell you what kinds of things he might be posting?"

"Yeah, he did!" Alya exclaimed, ignoring the growing crowd around their desks. All of their classmates except Chloe were hanging on her every word. "Mostly photos, but that's still great! So I can expect more selfies and maybe shots of them on patrol or fighting akumas. Chat Noir didn't say how many photos to expect, but I did set _some_ limits."

"What kind?" Rose asked eagerly.

"Any cat memes and I'm taking back my permission and changing the password."

* * *

Two weeks after the live-stream went viral, Ladybug and Chat Noir settled down on a rooftop during a weekend patrol. Between them sat the list of questions Alya had handed over to them during the last fight. Only two had been crossed off- Alya had shown great restraint- and three more had gotten prepared answers for. They were going to film their "interview" on Chat Noir's baton, but not live-stream it in case either of them accidentally said anything that could potentially reveal their identity. If all went well, it would get posted to Alya's blog at a hair past midnight, probably ruining a quarter of Paris' sleep schedule as people stayed up to watch it.

"Good evening, Paris!" the heroes chimed together as the recording started.

"We're here tonight to answer a few questions we got from the Ladyblog's moderator Alya," Ladybug said, knowing full well that mentioning the Ladyblog at least a few times throughout the interview might help deter other Ladybug-focused blogs from stealing the video like they had the livestream. Alya had complained endlessly about other sites ripping off their original video and posting it as their own, so both superheroes were hoping to deter that. "The first question is: when did we get our Miraculous?"

"And the answer for both of us is the day Stoneheart showed up!"

"Second question: Favorite color!"

"Blue, like my Lady's gorgeous eyes!" Chat Noir piped up immediately, pretending to swoon a bit. Ladybug elbowed him.

"My favorite color is pink."

"Not green, like _my_ gorgeous eyes?" Chat Noir pretended to complain loudly, clapping a hand to his heart. "Stabbed right through the heart, a brutal rejection from my lady-"

"Third question," Ladybug cut across before Chat Noir could descend into dramatics. "Favorite place in Paris!"

Chat Noir grinned and pointed to the structure behind them. "The Eiffel Tower, of course."

"Number four: favorite animal."

"Cats, naturally," Chat Noir cut in before Ladybug could respond to the question she had just read. "And the same for Ladybug, of course; she's partial to black cats with green eyes because they're _purr_ ticularly gorgeous- _right_ , my lady?"

Ladybug snorted at that. Chat Noir took that as permission to continue.

"And cats are _purr_ ty soft and pettable!" Chat Noir claimed, shoving his head right next to Ladybug's and giving her big kitten eyes. "Don't you think so, Ladybug?"

Ladybug shoved his face away and dinged the bell dangling from his collar before reading the next question, a small smile on her face.

Two hours later, once the heroes had finished "answering" all of the questions and got the video uploaded, Alya found herself groaning as she watched. Somehow Ladybug and Chat Noir had managed to dodge around the questions they did end up using, but if the comments were anything to go by, no one besides her had actually noticed.

Alya sighed, shaking her head as the video ended. She really hadn't expected anything different, really. Everyone knew how protective the duo were of their secret identities, and while Alya _had_ picked the most innocuous questions she could think of, it was possible that they had unusual enough answers to some of the questions that it would give them away. Alya had known that she was pushing it with her question about what their dream job would be- and they had clearly vetoed that question- but favorite food? Favorite subject in school? They had answered for each other, and very obviously incorrectly if the snickers were anything to go by.

Directing her attention to the comments again, Alya smiled at a few screenshots and gifs people had taken from the video. One gif showed the superheroes laughing together over something Chat Noir had said. It was a cute shot, with Ladybug leaning against Chat Noir for support as she laughed.

 _They're TOTALLY a couple!_ the comment read. _This is proof, right here!_ Alya blinked, then looked again. She had just seen it as two great friends together, but near the end Ladybug had flashed a grin at Chat Noir that maybe, _maybe_ toed the line between friends and flirty.

 _Huh._ Maybe the interview had let on more than the superheroes intended. And if that was the case...

Well, Alya was going to be getting on that scoop first.

* * *

 _A/N: As with most of my stories, this IS a one-shot and is therefore complete._

 _Please leave reviews! They make my day :)_


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